With the gasping number of reported HIV/AIDS infections around the world, President George W. Bush has asked the US Congress to set aside $30bn over five years for the global fight against HIV/Aids – twice the amount allotted in 2003.
Although it’s commendable that in his final year in office, President Bush’s “swan song” would include a financial package helping AIDS ravaged African countries, Congress has other plans; a portion, yet to be specified, will go into teaching abstinence-only sex education in American classrooms. Instead of teaching safe-sex and the risks of transmission of the virus, or giving more access to condoms, programs focused on perpetrating the notion that any sexual act (safe or not) outside the sanctity of marriage is immoral and wrong will be benefiting from the funding. Secular educators argue that teaching safe-sex would only encourage children to begin having sex and therefore further promiscuity, homosexuality and lead to higher occurrences of HIV/AIDS (although there is some studies that have suggested that proper sex education does lead to a slight increase in sexual activity in young teens, the numbers also seem to indicate that a greater portion of them will engage in safer sex). However, teaching abstinence doesn’t lead to abstinence; instead, adolescents often engage in other tertiary sexual activities that are even more likely to transmit the disease (such as unprotected anal sex, which some consider an acceptable alternative to traditional intercourse).
In 2004, U.S. Congressman Henry A. Waxman of California releases a report detailing the misinformation being given to children in our schools, including misrepresenting the failure rate of condoms and misrepresenting the effectiveness of condoms in preventing transmission of the virus. OF the 13 programs, receiving US grant money to fund, only 2 were found to NOT contain these errors.
It is not hard to understand how we as a society, as a nation and as a collective must act now. We have long since crossed the threshold of global pandemic, and new infections are continuing to rise at a staggeringly exponential rate. According To Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), there are 40 million reported cases of HIV/AIDS worldwide. By 2025, it is estimated that 90 million people will have contracted HIV. In 2005 alone, 2.4-3.3 million people died from AIDS; 570 000 were children. The statistics are bone chilling, but undeniable.
There has never been a more pertinent time for safe sex education – both in the classrooms and at home. Education about HIV/ AIDS must start from an early age, so that children grow up knowing how to protect themselves. Whether, we like it or not, our kids are going to have sex. The first and only line of defense we have as parents, and as a society, is to teach them healthy, safe behaviour. Since the first reported case of AIDS in 1981 (over a quarter of a century ago), over 25 million people worldwide have died from AIDS, yet the way in which we educate our children has not changed one bit. There has never been a more vital time to implore this standard in this, and every other culture.
Sources: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6706085.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstinence-only_sex_education
Ryan Harkness and Jacob Fortin are both writers and comedians, as well full time godless heathens.
You are absolutely right on but I feel it is up to parents to be informed on the latest news and to have open discusions about sex with their children. It is not up to the schools to educate our children and the sooner parents realise this the better off our children will be. They are there to learn math and reading but ethical and morale issues are a parents job and duty.
First and foremost, I do believe strongly that sexual education belongs in ALL schools, from elementary through college. This is NOT a moral/religious issue we’re talking about here; we’re talking about something as basic as biology and health. Little kids play with each other and are bound to ask the question, “What makes boys and girls different?”, and the sooner these questions are addressed in an unbiased and informed manner, the more respect for their bodies our children will have. Unfortunately most parents are biased and are not always the best source for children to receive this information from, because parents simply may not know or know how to set aside religious convictions and give their children the facts. With as saturated as our culture is with sex, (admit it, SEX SELLS), our children have the RIGHT to learn about sexual health. We’re pitching products at 9 year old girls and boys that are extremely sexually charged and expect them not to know what sex is? Denying them information about RESPONSIBLE sexual health is one more step in creating another naieve, clueless generation that will carelessly expose themselves to unneccesary risk.
I’m not going to go into this in detail, but wouldn’t it also be prudent to educate our young better about the risks involved with unwanted sexual contact? I personally never heard anything in school about contracting STD’s from rape, or being tested for STD’s after a rape. This is such a closet issue in the US that it should be a concern, especially since most rapes are perpetrated by someone the victim knows well.
The real point we should take from this article/editorial is not necessarily about sexual education in the US, we should think about the fact that money is being requested from us as taxpayers to help people in dire need, and that money is not going where it should be. It’s absolutely disgraceful that we are essentially taking money from charity to supplement our education system, let alone that the money goes to further ignorance. Top that off with the fact that good’ol GW is trying to make it look like he actually cares about the AIDS epidemic. I think most of his sudden plea to help AIDS ridden countries in Africa is just a PR move before the G8 summit coming up. Our efforts to help the AIDS epidemic can be much better directed than just throwing money at the problem, which by the by, we don’t contribute nearly as much in relation to GDP as other industrialized nations. What about giving financial incentives to pharmacutical companies to develop better and cheaper HIV vaccines? If we are going to take money from a bill like this and apply it to our education system, why not funnel the money to medical universities researching the structure of the AIDS virus and potential cures? We’re taking money from a worthwhile cause, misapplying it, and wondering why the virus continues to spread… Wow.
I wonder how the children BORN with the virus would react to knowing they can’t afford their medication because kids in the US need to learn not to have sex or they’ll get a virus and go to hell.
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you!